A CENTURY OF NERVE

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Topping the Top Ten (Part One)

So, I keep getting tagged to do these top-ten things on The Book of Face, and I haven’t gotten to any of them yet. That’s because this semester has been a vortex of insanity and I haven’t gotten to a lot of things yet, including removing the polish I put on my toe nails this summer and purchasing actual groceries. Now that the semester is over and all of its accessories (third-year review materials, grades, manuscripts, FLEX receipts, book orders, vet visits, stationary purchases, bill payments, tiny Post-Its with even tinier To Do lists) have found their homes, I can finally return to the rest of my life and to very important things, like taking photographs of my cats and figuring out why everyone is so very mad at everyone else on The Real Housewives of Atlanta.* And, of course, Facebook memes.

I was going to post these on Facebook, but then remembered that the statute of limitations has pretty much run out on them. Also, I remembered that I have this blog, mostly because one of the tiny Post-Its’ tinier To Do list featured these two items:

HEY DON’T FORGET THAT YOU HAVE A BLOG

YOU SHOULD PROBABLY START WRITING ON THAT BLOG AGAIN YOU KNOW

First:

Top Ten Random Things About Myself

This very terrifying illustration of very sad children is the best possible preface for this list.

When I was very little, I wanted to be an astronomer. But not an astronaut, since that would involve actually going into space and space seemed really creepy.

I somehow got my hands on a grown-up astronomy book when I was very little, and said book totally confirmed that space is really creepy. Said book also introduced me to the concept of a black hole. This was so not a positive moment in my childhood development.

The thing that made the above-mentioned moment so not positive is that I somehow came to the conclusion that black holes could be anywhere. I mean, anywhere. I mean, like, in the very hallway of my very home anywhere.

Once I came to this conclusion, I came to the next obvious and logical conclusion, which really just seemed like an actual fact, it was so obvious and logical: THERE WERE VERY CLEARLY BLACK HOLES IN THE VERY HALLWAY OF MY VERY HOME.

I spent the next month or so running down the hallway at top speed EverySingleTime, because apparently this was the most obvious and logical way to escape black holes.

I also had this book of Grimm’s fairy tales that were, like, the actual fairy tales, meaning the versions in which people are maimed and broken and bleeding or, worse, the victims of bizarre psychological torture. I was both too terrified to read it and compelled to constantly read it, over and over, as if one of the witches in the illustrations had cast upon me some really messed up spell. The illustrations in this book all looked like this:

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ILLUSTRATOR AND PUBLISHER? How is this appropriate for anyone, much less a child?

I soon realized it was totally possible for me to be under the influence of some really messed up spell because it also occurred to me that if evil strangers could come for your firstborn and birds could peck out your eyes, there was no reason to doubt that

the witch in the book was obviously real

the witch in the book, who was now obviously real, had the power to cast some really messed up spells, and

the witch in the book was now obviously real and obviously, at any and every moment, prepared to cast some really messed up real spells.

The same logic that led me to realize there were very clearly black holes in the very hallway of my very home also led me to realize that the witch was outside of my very home, waiting. Specifically, she was outside of the window to my very bedroom in my very home. Waiting. With very bad intentions.

The same logic that led me to realize that I could escape the black holes by running down the hallway at top speed EverySingleTime also led me to realize that I could escape the witch by never, ever sleeping in a position that faced the window, EverySingleNight. And if I turned during the night to face the window and woke up that way, it was basically like every scene in Apocalypse Now, where it’s very creepily clear that something really terrible is about to happen, and even if it doesn’t happen, the panic is enough. And I knew exactly what my personal Kurtz looked like:

I mean SERIOUSLY. Seriously? SERIOUSLY.

I still can’t fall asleep if I’m facing a window.

* That last thing isn’t really so much a thing, as I already know the reason why everyone is so very mad at everyone else on all regional varieties of The Real Housewives, and that reason is: no. As in, there is no reason. So the last thing is more like a Zen koan, like an unanswerable question meant to occupy the mind while the body rests and meditates.

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One thought on “Topping the Top Ten (Part One)”

This is hilarious. You must have been constantly terrified! Jackson and I used to be scared of our bedroom light that looked like a flying saucer with an all seeing eye in the middle. We named him Buba and we though if did didn’t say, “goodnight Buba, I love you” he would come down and get us.